Lunch, 1983

Plastic compartments, pink pudding first.
Peas, potatoes, apart. Ham in rind fringe, picked at and ignored in
pinking grey, a gravy of ladled slop.
Potato barricade, processed delight, mass of sand in my sinus.
Dinner lady in powdery skin, thinning lips points at my tray.
The compartments have made my leavings specific.
I'm not ashamed that the ham has cooled,
but soon I will be in the toilet, unhappy, crying as it spills from my mouth.